Interesting coincidence , as I was just searching ATS archives for threads on giant/collossal squid. Thanks for the post. Any squid story is a good story.

Does anyone happen to have a copy of or a working link to a photograph associated with a U.S. Navy ship's (often credited to the "U.S.S. Stein") encounter with a squid (or octopus) that resulted in damage to the anechoic covering on its SONAR housing? Some friends and I were discussing it and I swear I have seen a picture of the tattered rubber coating, but I have Googled it until I have carpal tunnel with no results. Lots of references, but no photos.

This has to be more then one form of Architeuthis.I'm surprised the last 10 years how many have been either seen on camera or found off shore as result washing up dead.Good thing this isn't like the Humboldt squid.Imagine a giant aggressive squid around you while your diving.

[edit on 16-6-2008 by alienstar]

who said there isn't an agressive giant squid if there were no survivors who would report the attack

The recent discovery of the 25ft squid off Santa Cruz renewed my interest in this subject. I was a radar technician on the USS Stein in 1972, and so I have some direct knowledge of the Stein incident. The ship had left San Diego in April 72 on a 6 wk shakedown cruise immediately after her commissioning. The attack itself occured right around sunset, about 100 miles off Ecuador. It was a terrifying event... Huge tentacles over 100 ft long were waving all over the place!! There was total panic on the bridge. The beast, whatever it was, actually hooked one of the officers on the port bridge wing, but one alert sailor used a battle ax to chop the tentacle off. The OOD sent the ship to GQ.... oh god, I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself.. (it's every sailor's duty to fabricate sea stories) The fact is, nobody knew when we were attacked. The ship make calls in Guayaquil, Ecuador, then Peru, Panama, Acapulco and back to San Diego. We then went to Long Beach Naval Shipyard for a drydock availability. It was only then that the tattered sonar dome was noticed. Several long deep scratches through a hard rubber and fabric covering. It must have taken unbelievable strength to drag a claw through it... The statements on some websites that the attack occured off San Diego is simply not supported by any facts. It could have happened anywhere on that southpac cruise... Anyway, the biologists who came to Long Beach to examine the claw speculated that it could have been a 150 ft giant squid.

I know this is alot later than the original post. The U.S.S. Stein FF-1065 had it's sonar dome's rubber window destroyed by a giant squid as was reveiled. But back in 1979 I was a sonarman on the Reasoner FF-1063 and we were told that the window was damaged becase of sub-standard maintance and crewmembers were disciplined for it since the cost of the rubber window was over 1 million dollars and getting it repaired cost over 3 million. I wonder if the sonarman responsible for the pressure board ever found out different?

Deep sea exploration is very different from outer space. The sea is an abyss, with very limited visibility, and technology such as sonar isn't really very good for finding species of creatures. A lot of it relies on finding washed up remains or examining the contents of stomachs.

At least with outer space we can see a whole lot of it with the naked eye.